dean day

Comic Publishing in my campaign

Taking a leaf out of the Sentinels RPG and card game, where a lot of their energy goes into the fictional comic book publishing world of their characters. I thought I would do the same for my campaign. Sticking to the rule of only using characters that have been published by superhero RPG's or games (as in the Protectors which I am currently converting to my versions) or at least mentioned (Spinerette is a great example) and also saying up front I love homages to the big two comic companies, so many of my versions of the characters will be more slanted to direct or semi homages (Grond will be a classic example of this as he will become much more a direct Hulk/Bruce Banner homage than his current champions universe version).

I will use this post to add to the comics published in my campaign world. Looking for a company name for the comics publisher I am going to go with my own homage to Hero games and call them HC (Hero Comics).

Here is a list I will add to over time.

Dr Wraithe (Magical adventures, often with a historical British feel with Dr. Wraithe travelling through time, this title has stopped and started again a few times)

Heroic Team Up (Team up book with Spinerette and a guest star hero)

The Protectors! (A long term comic dedicated to the super group from San Francisco) 

The Incredible Spinerette (The longest running Spinerette title now running for three years since her debut)

Paula Atwood Super Spinerette  (A title focusing on the young heroine's secret identity, HC has no idea in reality Paige Adams is Spinerette but weirdly they have made up her secret identity that has the same initials as her real name, which has freaked the real Spinerette out hugely as she is convinced someone at HC knows who she really is).

Silk of the Spinerette (Spinerette title that is aimed more at teens and children, especially teen girls so is much more romance orientated in its story telling)

Spinerette (2nd most popular current Spinerette title)

I will add to this post as I complete more characters.

Character created with Hero Designer (version 20220312)

Just as an aside, I like endurance to be more a factor in my games especially with young heroes that maybe have not got full control of their powers yet, so note the high endurance costs of some powers on my builds such as Spinnerette above. 

Just as a quick FYI the write ups in the future will not include background details. It is just taking far too long to type it all in and I have not got that much free time at the moment. So I will stick to the mechanics of the write up and hopefully i can provide more of them that way. Next up Maelstrom.

Here is Dr Wraithe

Character created with Hero Designer (version 20220312)

Here is Brainstorm. I have added into his background his flirtation with the Guardians who in my campaign will be my version of the X-Men, although still using most of the old Guardians Champions characters (Goliath,Icestar, flare, Gargoyle etc.

I have made him slightly more powerful in combat and added in an Ego drain power. I have reduced some of his characteristics as physically I did not want him so competent. I have given him lighting reflexes for his mental powers and this will be a common power for mentalists in my campaign. Next up Dr. Wraithe.

Lastly I have given a name to the psychic increasing drug he was fed to by PSI and called it MXI I will be using this as the most common psychically enhancing drug in the campaign universe.

Character created with Hero Designer (version 20220312)

7 hours ago, tiger said:

Putin trying to bring back the past? 

 

Freelance terrorists maybe 

I think Red Doom have a lot of potential in the current political climate with the Ukraine/Russian war. I can see them being used by Putin (or whatever faceless Russian dictator you use). The interesting thing is in the original organisation there was some very villainous members but also some very heroic ones, so would be interesting how you justify the heroic ones being part of a ruthless mercenary group.

13 hours ago, tombrown803 said:

Question: how do you see the limitation "Does not work in a vacuum" working that its worth a -2. RAW, the rulesbook has it listed as a -1/4. Just curious

 

 

You are right, It's a long time since I played Champions and I am using this project to prepare for a campaign. I had in my head that it represented how much the power did not function rather than how often it did not function for the points. I have amended it, thanks for the spot. Below is the updated file, I have also added in appearance details.

Character created with Hero Designer (version 20220312)

12 hours ago, steriaca said:

It depends on how often it actually shows up in the campaign. In a more earthbound campaign, where space travel is a rarity and actual space combat is a "not going to happen" it is worth a -1/4, if the GM is being generous. If the entire campaign is space bound, then a -2 is perhaps the right amount. 

No he was correct, the Protectors in my campaign might have the occasional cosmic or space adventure but it should be 1/4, I just made a mistake with the limitation in my mind.

On to Brainstorm next.

Here is my version of Doc Sonic.

Character created with Hero Designer (version 20220312)

Doc Sonic.HTML

Continuing this project I am going to start with 5th edition versions of the Protectors from the adventure "To Serve and Protect". They will be my versions so depending on the character the differences might be big or small or hardly any different at all. Will be giving them all some xp bonuses as in my campaign I want them to be quite a powerful and experienced group of heroes. I will post hero designer sheets for them as I go first up will be Doc Sonic. 

No what I was getting at was, If i wanted to simulate slow growth on a character that has been active x amount of years and spend those XP at the end of each year active what ranges would be appropriate?

Lets just say for example we have a spider-man type young hero that's been active four years, if I wanted to spend some xp for him at the end of each year how much would be appropriate in a range?

On 11/4/2019 at 1:20 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Its a bit complicated but basically necromantic energy from Nazi death camps were used to wake up the old Norse gods and put them on the side of the Axis.  Except Loki, who is for whatever side the other gods are agin'.

 

So he stole some of the Iðunn Apples which grant the gods their everlasting youth, and began distributing tiny slices to thugs, mugs, pugs, ruffians and Methodists of all stripes, creating supervillains.  Some of them got more power than others (a bigger slice, etc).  Through a case of mistaken identity, the heroes ended up being offered the power, but before they could decide... Thor shows up in the skies to take the apples back.

 

Now, none of them have any idea this is Loki or for that matter what the heck is going on, just that the sinister looking charmer at the table suddenly went pale white and rushed out side, then there's this big flashing thunderstorm and explosions in the sky.  Mjolnir hits Lokis bag of apples in the fight and blammo, pieces and whole apples are showered all over the globe, and the people at ground zero -- the PCs -- all gain superpowers.

 

If you've ever played the computer game "Freedom Force" the apples were going to act like Energy X cannisters, once in a while someone could find one for a temporary powerup, heals, etc.  Plus, they were the reason for superpowered people popping up all over the place.

 

I got the inspiration for the Norse Gods thing from a short story, I cannot remember who by, that had the same essential premise (minus the apples).

I have to say that is one of the most original and cool scenarios for sudden super heroes and villains I have ever heard! 

Question for you guys, how much XP would you give NPC's in your campaign, both heroes and villains to simulate that they started off as 350 point characters but they are now two, five, ten, twenty years on in their careers?

Would it be a range? what would be your maximum?

I am trying to simulate and build various NPC's of various experience levels and I want to simulate such xp in as logical way as possible.

Would it be anything from 10-50 points a year depending on the NPC? how would you and do you update long running NPC's in your campaign?

Dean 

8 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

I would not put Thor or a calm Hulk at 100 STR.  Hulk at full rage I can see being at a hundred STR, but not starting out.  Thing starting out is probably about 50 STR and at his strongest would probably be about 70. Unlike a lot of bricks he actually does know martial arts, so does not need to be as strong.  Part of the damage he does is because he knows how to use his STR better than they do.

 

As to not being able to use it in a game, what I meant was not being able to use it in anyone else’s game.  You could add an extra 0 to everyone’s STR and adjust the defenses and it would work out.  But means you cannot use the character in any other game without doing the same thing. That is what I see being done.  It seems the character you are writing up are so far from the baseline Champions they cannot be used in a normal champions game.  I would lower your STR of your characters by about 20 points.  Making these character useable in a standard Champions game would be more helpful to others. 

 

I also see the same thing happening with other things like OCV and martial arts.  That is one reason I prefer 6th edition.  Divorcing OCV from DEX allows you to create a low DEX character with good OCV.  It also allows you to have characters that don’t have the same OCV as they do DCV.  Sometimes a character should be better at hitting than avoiding being hit. One thing a brick can do to deal with a high DCV character is hit them with large objects.  When the object is large enough to become an area of effect attack DCV no longer matters.  Give the Thing WE with large objects (need a better wording, but it is late)
 

Well thats where we probably differ on strength levels, starting PC's would be about 50-65 but I want my heavy hitters in the campaign to be well above that. As to if they are usable for other peoples campaigns, obviously my priority is my campaign and if people dont want to use them that's fine, that was not my motive for posting them anyway, but I would point out it takes minutes to amend characters to fit into their own personal campaign if they want to.

And as for being baseline champions, these are NPC's I am posting not PC's, If the thing on 700ish points will never be used, what does that say for the many, many official champions characters way above that level? Yes he is a powerful NPC, My supers campaigns have always been full of them.

13 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

The Hulk states in his description that he starts out at that range and gets even stronger when he gets angry.   The Thing is not that strong, nor is he that good in combat or the skills you gave him.   This character is way too powerful for the thing.   But at the same time his other defenses are kind of low. 

 

What is the point of writing something up if it can never be used in a game.  Unless you all the characters are at that level in your game this write up is pointless.  If all the characters in your game are at that level the game you are running is so far out of the norm that they have no relevance to anyone else. 

 

I am not trying to be rude or disrespectful, I am just wondering what the purpose of these posts are?  

LOL, why could this not be used in a game? all stas are relative to each other are they not? and this will become apparent as I keep posting more characters. You could do versions of many characters hundreds and hundreds of points part, that does not make any version non valid, it all depends on how they stack up with other characters in your game.

I have not taken it disrespectfully, you are contributing to the thread and I thank you for that, the purpose is to share the posts with others as my version of the universes and I promise you they will match up relative to each other.

11 hours ago, GM Joe said:

Wouldn't sharing a creative effort with those who are interested be enough reason?

 

 

Well yes! We may often disagree on character visions, but no one is really right or wrong it is just interpretation. For me what is most important is how they model against each other. It is the same in the comics different creative teams write characters in different ways with the spill over of power increases or decreases before the next writer comes along.

15 hours ago, Tech said:

After everything you mentioned, I look at this version of Ben Grim and wonder if you overdid it. I haven't read any Fantastic Four comics for a long time I admit so maybe the Thing's changed. However, I have to say I never thought he had more than an 80 Str. The +8 Levels with Martial Arts seems overly generous: at most I'd give him 5 lvls. I don't recall him ever being worthy of a 25 Ego and his Pre is way too high - with that, people will be fainting with him just walking into the room. I don't think he needs that much Body with the defenses you've given him; wow.

Well the stats will make more sense as I do more write ups as I said in the original post as they are all relative to each other. The strength level is to get him to just below the characters who will be placed at a 100ish (Thor, Hercules, calm Hulk etc).

With the combat skill levels he is considered one of the greatest fighters in the Marvel uni and with such a low Dex and the maneuvers I gave him he will be hit aplenty but will also be hitting back, the combat skill level range I will be giving out is 1-12. So this places him just off top tier with 8.

The ego represents his huge willpower than is often seen and spoken about. 

He is one of the most experienced and powerful heroes in the marvel uni and my FF overall will be one of the premier groups, as they should be. 

14 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

According to the old guides I had published by Marvel in the 80’s Thing was able to lift about 80 tons.  That should put his STR around 60 not 90.  90 STR is able to lift 6.4 Ktons.  Thing should be something a player could play especially the earlier versions, not something that can defeat anyone.   Champions was designed to simulate this type of stuff.  Something may be out of reach of players, but the Thing is not one of them.

Yes he has improved since then, also I didn't want to put him too far under a calm Hulk, to represent they are such an even match for each other in their classic brawls over the years.

15 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I think part of his durability is that when he is fully enflamed, he's made of fire.  That is, he's not entirely tangible so some attacks just pass through him (like bullets, melting), and others don't really hit him all that solid.  Damage Reduction, in other words.

I like that, it makes sense for him when hes literally a body of flame.

14 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

The marvel wiki lists human torch as aways being flaming.  If you look at the top under pyrogenesis it states he has the ability to transform his pody into plasma.  It also references his the molecules his body is made of not only generate energy but also have larges store of latent chemical-energy bonding energies.  Basically his molecular structure has been altered.  In game terms he has a decent PD & ED and some resistant defense.

I will go with a bigger ED than PD I think but not too large and go also with damage reduction as Christopher suggested.

Its the Marvel Wiki, no its the FF Torch, Johnny Storm.

While researching the Torch for my characters thread I came a cross this entry at the Marvel Wiki.

• Superhuman Durability: The Human Torch is surprisingly, and extremely durable. He was able to shake off a punch from Gladiator,^[117] and has taken multiple punches from Namor.

When did this become a thing? I have read FF all the way past the Byrne run (thats admittedly a long time ago) but I dont really remember him being written as super durable, yes his flaming aura protects him from things like bullets and he has a damage shield for sure, but super durability? 

Whats your thoughts on this? 

The Thing.HTML

Statistic and Power Levels For the Builds

I dont know if this is still a thing, but over the years Champions published characters would fall under certain patterns for stats which sometimes I did not like and overall I felt the stats were too high, especially when looking at both dexterity and speed. On the other side of the coin I felt Strength too many times would fall around the 60 mark, so lets look at these in turn.

Overall power level in damage dice

I want to simulate a greater common range of power level than was common in Champions back in say 4th edition. the higher damage levels say 15d to 20d will be more common in these builds depending obviously on the character and some  (powerful villains, top tier powerful heroes) will go way beyond that. That said I also want to keep street heroes at the correct level, but I am going to build many characters as very much glass cannons if they need to be.

Defenses

Pd and Ed levels will not commonly be artificially raised in builds unless there is a real reason to do so and increased defenses for combat luck or great willpower will probably be given to the most famous and iconic heroes to simulate the fact they have something special that allows them to come through in fights, but it wont be the norm instead reserved for the real comics superstars such as Batman and Spidey.

This will mean obviously fights will be much shorter in my campaign eventually and I am fine with that, as I previously said many characters will then be glass cannons going down quickly if tagged but able to be very offensively damaging themselves (Cyclops I am looking at you!).

Dexterity

I will be lowering DEX across the board if characters are considered to be more or less normal humans. I never liked the fact that the most common DEX scores were around 22-23 and slow was considered 18. I will dial it right back to the average human being 10 and anything over 30 is considered superhuman. However looking at the 6th edition tables on page 72 of the champions book, I love those ranges, but wil lenforce them much more strictly so characters fall between average to competent much more with only a few exceptional heroes going into the legendary range on DEX.

Speed

Again in Champions write ups over the years a speed of 5 seemed bog standard and 4 was slow and 6 considered fast. Again I want to dial this back a bit so a 6 would be considered very fast and reactive and slow would be considered much more down the line and common at a 2 with averages more 3-4. Again to use a wider range of speeds and make the superhuman speed guys that much more special.

Strength

Going to be really careful with the street hero/ normal strength characters to differentiate them more, so a character say like the Human Torch will not be given strength of much better than say skilled 11-13 also taking into account build and gender so when we get to the real street heroes such as Daredevil, Nightwing etc they still stand out.

Martial Arts & Combat Skill Levels

In comics recently it seems that everyone has training in Martial Arts these days, However I want to be careful in again showing the difference between this and and the real martial artist experts, so will be keeping a real tight rein on combat levels.

Contacts

The builds will be contact heavy to show heroes allies and history whenever possible.

Enemies

I will be limiting this disadvantage to maybe one or two arch enemies for the heroes and then a generalized rogues gallery disadvantage to not overload with enemies, for example Cap would have the Red Skull as his arch enemy then a rogues gallery representing villains like Batroc, Crossbones, Arnim Zola etc.

Cross Universe Levels

I want the characters to make sense and be competitive across the main comics universe so that obviously means many DC characters will be reduced in stats and raw power compared to their marvel counterparts, this obviously means characters like Superman who I want to be on a rough par with Thor and Hulk from Marvel. This is going to be a bit of a juggling act obviously as both universes operate under different power levels sometimes but I want them to be broadly comparable as I will be using them in the same Universe.

That is enough rambling for now, i will add to my thinking as different bits come up.

For fun and eventually when I plan on doing in the far future a gonzo shared DC/Image/Marvel campaign for my players (we are currently knee deep in a Warhammer 4th edition campaign) I am going to post here my versions of well known and sometimes more obscure characters from the main comics publishers.

I will be building them using Hero Designer and I have not regularly played a hero game for many years, so I would love some feedback if you think I could have done things differently or better with the builds or if you think I have forgotten anything with the characters themselves.

I am going to try to make the builds as internally consistent against each other as possible so they make sense and "feel right". To help me do this I am going to keep spreadsheets comparing characters stats against each other so I can model them easier by comparing and contrasting as I go.

As to design philosophy I have my own definite thoughts on levels given to stats like DEXTERITY and SPEED, skill levels and power levels etc. But I will make as I say everyone as consistent against each other as possible.

So please before you post saying character X's dexterity is far too low, etc, etc please read the posts below of me explaining where I am coming from on the stat and power levels.

One general point is the builds will be an overall snap shot of the character and not one particularly from present day comics. My main comic reading period was the 70's to the 90's (I am old) and although I am open to recent developments on characters, I am more looking at a "classic" take on each character sometimes maybe combining elements or doing multiple versions of them, but also sometimes ignoring versions of characters I did not like.

For example my favorite version of Hank Pym was always when he was Yellowjacket, but I may do other versions of him, down the road.

Hopefully this thread will build into a nice database of characters over time.

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Do you have Book Of The Destroyer? Huge amount of background info for DD, lots of write-ups for his minions, bases, technology, servants, much more than in his Champions Villains entry. Including stats for his earlier armors when his power level was much lower.

 

If you want to add a mystical side to the character, you could look at his otherworldly doppleganger, Shadow Destroyer, who fuses science with sorcery. As one rationale for his having acquired that knowledge, I tend to connect his Javangari followers and their variant Shiva cult having taught him magic.

No I don't have that supplement as I got a bit turned off him in the last two editions as he became in my opinion a bit unusable in an actual campaign in face to face slugfests. yes of course he is still fine to use as a master villain, but I always liked the pay off of the PC's duking it out at the end with them. 

But I think this was a general trend with the master villains for champions anyway, Mechanon is another great example of becoming too deadly to use. Once you go into the 30d6 attack range of power, unless your group is of cosmic level defenses themselves they are going down fast and hard. I look at these write up and wince.

Mechanon was hugely challenging back in the day before these more modern write ups! anyway just my personal opinion. I want him much more at a real Dr.Doom level where he used to off nameless minions easily in a comic panel, but not superheroes in the story! (My bronze age preferences coming through).

Thank you Lord Liaden, Shadow Destroyer sounds very intresting. 

Dr Destroyer

I am using Destroyer but in a very different way from how he has been presented in the last couple of editions. I am really bringing his power level down to his early appearances in the game much like he was back with the Island of Dr Destroyer. Looking at his bloated uber powerful right ups in the recent editions I think he basically became unbeatable and unusable, which is a real shame for such a great old school champions character. He was always a blatant Dr. Doom homage even down to his name with also some Red Skull riffs in his Nazi background. 

If you look at Doom closely in the comics he gets involved in many fights with the FF and other teams and he is all about his defenses, which are super high but his offense output was never huge.

I am going to lean into the Doom homage much more and make him very much the arch enemy of the Atom Family (My choice from Mutants & Masterminds for my FF type group) I will be using a lot of the background for Romania in the Super powered Legends setting for Lord A'Arc. 

I am also removing the world war 2 Nazi element in his background and moving him up in the time scale so he would be maybe in his early fifties when the campaign begins. 

Also to his write up I will be adding some sorcery and spells to give him a slight mystical sub bent of powers, but overall I just want to dial back hugely on his offensive power which has just turned him into a hero killer as far as I can see. I want to actually use him in the campaign and yes he will trounce my starting pc heroes, but he won't kill them in a few segments! 

Motivations

Conquer the world the classic one obviously

Humiliate and destroy Dr Atom's reputation and to a lesser extent the Atom Family as a whole - Not kill, but humiliate and cause as much pain as possible, particularly wants to destroy Atom's scientific reputation. This begs the question does he want to do the same with other heroes with reps for being tech geniuses such as Daedalus and other villains as well? I am guessing anyone that has a scientific reputation rivaling his own who find themselves in the line of fire to some extent.

Find a way to extend his own life I find it possibly amusing that in a world of extended life spans from all sorts of origins, that Destroyer has yet to find anything that works on himself. If i have him in his mid 50's now in my campaign I would like to see him age in the armor over the next few years and this become a real priority for him, It was one of the things I actually really liked in the champs Destroyer write up that he becomes a wizened old weak man behind the armor's mask.

Save his mother - I always really like this motivation from Marvel's Doom as it made him more into a real person and gave reason for his interesting delve into magic. In the superpowered legends book (Lord D'Arc) is involved heavily in saving Romania from vampires, so I will take this one step further and say his mother became a bride of Dracula!

Destroy Dracula and all Vampires Lets set up Dracula as his 2nd biggest enemy after the Atom Family due to revenge for his mother.

Protect Romania and it's citizens Lets humanise him again a bit more and say he actually wants to protect Romania and its citizens, but that in his head does not make him a brutal dictator (which he is) but still means the average Romanian has a great quality of life (which strangely enough with all his tech improvements they actually do).

Eliminated Elements & Characters

A list of Champions of other super game setting characters and other elements (teams, organisations etc) that will not be used in the campaign and a brief reason why.

Cosmic Entity's

A list of important, powerful cosmic entities.